Present day elevator door systems have doors mounted on the elevator car and doors mounted at each hall landing of the elevator hoistway. The hoistway doors at the hall landings are mounted directly to the building structure and are kept closed whenever the car is not present at the related landing in order to prevent passengers and objects from entering the hoistway. The elevator car carries an electric motor and door operator for operating the car doors. Instead of having door operators for each of the hoistway doors, the hoistway doors are typically opened by coupling them with the car doors so that opening of the car doors will open the hoistway doors in unison therewith, thereby protecting passengers in the car from the building structure and protecting passengers at the landing from the hoistway. Thus, there will be a connection, i.e., a coupling connection, between the car and hoistway doors when the doors are opening or closing and there will be no such connection when the car is moving through the hoistway.
Various types of door couplers are known. A typical coupling device employs a rigid vane mounted on the car door which engages a rotatable pawl from the hoistway door, the pawl having rollers thereon so that the vane can travel upwardly or downwardly while engaging the pawl. Typically, there may be some lost motion between the two doors; that is, the car door must begin to open before it engages the pawl, unlocking the hoistway door, and commencing to push the hoistway door, through the pawl, in the open direction. When closing, the hoistway doors must be fully latched before the car door motion stops (before the car doors are fully closed). In some assemblies, the rollers move into contact with the vane before motion, and in others, the vane is expanded to contact the rollers before any motion. However, devices of this type are wear and adjustment sensitive and require frequent adjustments and replacements over the life span of an elevator system.
A moving vane coupler, shown in U.S. Patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,673, includes two vanes on the car door that separate to become wedged between two rollers on the hoistway door; the separation is caused by motion of the car door, working against a fixed cam.
An improved moving vane door coupler is disclosed in the commonly-owned copending U.S. Patent Application entitled Stationary Actuator Moving Vane Elevator Car Door Coupling, U.S. Pat. Ser. No. 08/225,220 filed Apr. 8, 1994.
Present elevator codes require a hold-close device to prevent passengers from opening the car doors when the elevator is in flight. It would be desirable to provide a new and improved hold-close device in a moving vane door coupler of the type referenced above.